Do you ever read a book and think, “There is no way I can ever review this?”

Kylie Chan has written 3 series of books that are set in Hong Kong and feature Chinese mythology and Taoist spirits.  I read and reviewed the first book but it was hard.  I didn’t review the next two.  They happen immediately after the first book and there is no way to explain what happened without in depth knowledge of the first book.

In the last week I read books 4 – 7.  It was one of the times when you read one and then immediately download the next one because you are mentally stuck in the world and want to see what happens.  I kept thinking that I was reading a lot of pages of nothing I could talk about without sounding like a complete idiot.

Let’s see:

  • Some of the characters are immortal so they keep getting killed in battle and have to be processed through Hell which is really annoying the Celestial Judge because it keeps happening.
  • Most of the Gods can change their gender which is nothing because they can also change into animals.  Yes, they discuss the sexual ramifications of that.
  • There are sentient stones that can also turn into people and they run computer networks.  They are led by The Grandmother whose Earthly form is Uluru.  She’s scary when she is mad.
  • By now even the main human character is turning into a snake at times and keeps getting IV infusions of demon essence against her will.
  • Riding on clouds is a preferred form of long distance travel.
  • There is a gay African-American man who is paralyzed who is now Immortal after fighting it for 9 years in Hell who can now turn into a lion and is dating an Immortal male turtle shen who is thousands of years old and they just adopted a toddler.  That’s just one storyline.

See, unexplainable but diverse as all get out and they entertained me to no end.

I often have this problems when reviewing series, especially ones that have a lot of books.  The Dresden Files comes to mind.  I love them and when a new one comes out I want to fangirl all over it.  But, no one is going to understand unless they are up to book 15 or whatever it is now.  Even talking about characters at this point can be major spoilers since it shows who lives.

How do you review books in long running series?